In 2012 I got the hump with Nick Clegg after a series of, what I thought were, misjudgements by him. I am pleased to say that I have been humpless with Nick for quite a while now. I feel that he is a confident, passionate and (now) sure-footed party leader and DPM.This feeling was cemented by his Sunday speech and Saturday Q&A.With half a dozen other bloggers I interviewed Nick at Portcullis House during the 2007 leadership contest. Despite being a Huhne supporter, I found myself carried away on a helter-skelter ride as Nick went on flights of passion about public services and foreign affairs. I was on the edge of my seat, mesmirised.

I felt some of that same excitement as I listened to Nick’s speech on Sunday.

His explanation of why he loves our country was one of the finest expositions of what it is to be British (or UKish as I insist on saying, to include Northern Ireland and our islands) that I have ever heard.

In a few words he precisely captured the quirky, passionate, tolerant, liberal spirit of our islands.

Seizing a chance opportunity, I buttonholed Nick at York station afterwards and congratulated him on his speech, saying I was “moist eyed” during it.

For once, I wasn’t being ironic.

* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist. He is a councillor and one of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.

19 Comments

Lib Dems should be careful to not be fair-weather friends. Open versus closed politics usually means liberal interventionism in foreign policy too. At the moment I have decided not to be a supporter of Nick Clegg, but true supporters will support him through the hard times too.

Some people are easily impressed by words. Others look at deeds like down 5MPs; down over 2,000 councillors; down 23,000 members; down to 4 MEPs (if we are lucky). If you are so mesmerised by the words, just look at the failure.

@ Peter Chegwyn – that was all part of the plan ? The theory went like this – people wanted to vote Liberal Democrat but didn’t do so because the Liberal Democrats couldn’t win. To overcome this the party had to become a party of Government then people would realise they could win and suddenly support would double. But there was a secret part of this theory that was only shared with the membership after support slumped. That theory was that once in power the Lib Dems would have to take tough decisions like dumping their best know policies – e.g. free tuition fees and that people hadn’t really voted Lib Dem because they supported the Lib Dems but tactically because they were anti-Labour or anti-tory. Thus it was the tactical labour voters would be outraged that the Lib Dems and put the Tories in power (however much that was Labours fault) and the tactical Tory voters would be outraged the Lib Dems stopped the Tories doing Tory things and the Lib Dems would be berated by the Party Leader for not being grown up and being happier in opposition than in dumping policies they had spent years campaigning for. (Despite the fact that many of them had actually had run councils, cities, assemblies etc) net result inevitably the Party would alienate all its voters by going into Government.

The Party appointed a director of ‘strategy’ who proposed the Lib Dems should spend the first party of the parliament saying how marvelous coalition was and the second half promoting differentiation ie. saying how awful coalition was and then hope that come the election the public would vote for another coalition.

The party would revive its fortunes but launching great campaigns like a £100 tax cut and the EU I’m in and literally thousands of people would tweet or sign a petition in support. OK, not quite the 6.8 million people who voted for the party, but certainly almost 0.1% of them !

RC
Who’s your rival candidate for leadership then, considering how appallingly Clegg has performed in your eyes?
RC, you KEEP asking this question, but please go and consider what
Caron Lindsay wrote here .

Unfortunately, as soon as someone is named as a possible rival, the media do all they can using their usual lurid language to trivialise the issue, with the person named immediately written up as if that person’s entire attention is devoted to “backstabbing” the leader, and as if the party has given up serious thought and is instead engaged in a battle of personalities. This is intensely embarrassing to the person so-named, who may well be a good choice for leader but is unlikely to be wanting to mount a personal challenge, and whose career then gets damaged because the lurid media coverage leads to that person being accused of being divisive.

It would be nice if this country had a proper understanding of democracy, which would mean regular changes of leader would be regarded as nothing remarkable, and it would be considered no great shame for one to be replaced by another. To me, it is a vital aspect of liberalism that leaders should be the servants of those they lead, not the masters, I long for a political atmosphere in which this is understood. We aren’t there yet. Actually, very sadly, we’re heading away from there, with this continual way the party is portrayed, and its leadership encourages it to be portrayed, as if it is the personal tool of The Leader.

I feel Nick Clegg has a number of weaknesses as a leader (and some strengths). He has a sense of strategy and can think long about big issues, which is a substantial plus. His interpretation of Liberalism contains elements I passionately reject, such as the notion that being in the centre or middle ground is somehow right in itself and part of the fundamental character of our party (as opposed to somewhere we happen to be in on some key issues), the ignoring or rejection of equality of outcome in favour of an impossible-to-define equality of opportunity, his love of the word “meritocracy” and his promotion of “helping people get on in life” as an expression of the basic nature of Liberalism rather than just a useful slogan. Nonetheless, he’s a Liberal and a Liberal Democrat, and he has shown a certain resilience and ability to learn from his mistakes.

His closing speech at York was the best I’ve heard from him and I think that’s worth celebrating.

I KEEP asking this question because there’s never any answer. And I’m going to carry on asking it.

There’s never any answer because those who wilfully slate Nick Clegg as our leader(in doing so helping our opponents) never actually have any serious ideas about who is such a strong candidate that they can achieve all the things they say Clegg should have done but hasn’t. They never explain how all the obstacles Nick Clegg faces would suddenly melt away and how the new leader would be met with unanimous acclaim, while the party doubles its polling ratings.

I would love to hear some convincing, coherent arguments about how Vince Cable/Tim Farron/ Ed Davey could wave a wand and make everything better. But I’m not holding my breath.

There is a scenario that if Scotland goes independent then Orkney and Shetland will go independent of the mainland. If the newly independent Orkney and Shetland then chose to join the UK again we would still have most of the oil and gas fields, and would have got shot of Alex Salmond and his crazy ideas.

RC
There’s never any answer because those who wilfully slate Nick Clegg as our leader(in doing so helping our opponents) never actually have any serious ideas about who is such a strong candidate that they can achieve all the things they say Clegg should have done but hasn’t.

I have always spelt out specifically where I think Clegg has gone wrong and what he should have done instead.
They never explain how all the obstacles Nick Clegg faces would suddenly melt away and how the new leader would be met with unanimous acclaim, while the party doubles its polling ratings.

I have never said that a new leader of the party would get universal acclaim or that the party under a new leader would double its ratings. I have just pointed out various things where I think Clegg has got it wrong. At the core I think his biggest mistake was to exaggerate what it was possible to do as very much the junior partner in the coalition, and so inevitably lead people to feel disappointed and feel he wasn’t telling the truth or underneath he’s just a Tory, because the reality is that this is a largely Tory government. Why won’t you let me say this? What sort of liberal are you that you deny free speech, that you believe constructive criticism of the leaders and alternative suggestions as to what he should have done can never be made? What sort of liberal are you that you seem to believe that uncritical adulation is the only attitude a party could possibly have of its leader?
I would love to hear some convincing, coherent arguments about how Vince Cable/Tim Farron/ Ed Davey could wave a wand and make everything better. But I’m not holding my breath.

I have already pointed out the comments made by Caron Lindsay where she noted how damaging it is when someone is singled out as “the leadership challenger”. Perhaps instead of repeating your usual line, you could have engaged with what Caron was saying there.

By the way, I despise Tim Farron, as the man behind the “75% of our manifesto implemented line”, who has never once apologised for pushing it, but has quietly dropped it once even its authors admitted it was a silly estimate, he’s a disaster, even less competent than Clegg. I suspect he’s being pushed as “the candidate of the left” because the right knows he’s no real leftist, but want him to overshadow those who could put a proper and coherent liberal left line.

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